Thursday, September 18, 2008

Is Being a Laywer a Requirement to be President?

Just a quick link, but over at the Volokh Conspiracy (a legal issues focused blog) there's a short but interesting post on the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates since 1980 for both parties. Specifically, Volokh looked at whether the candidate is a lawyer or not. He found:
[Democratic] Attorneys (10 out of 12 total - 83%)
Obama
Biden
Kerry
Edwards
Lieberman
Clinton
Dukakis
Bentson
Mondale
Ferarro
[Possibly Gore, who never graduated -- if he's included, the percentage is 92%]
Carter was the only non-lawyer, non-law school attendee.

[Republican] Attorneys (2 out of 9 total - 22%)
Dole
Quayle

Non-lawyers - McCain, Palin, Bush 43, Cheney, Kemp, Bush 41 and Reagan
So is being a lawyer a requirement to be President of the United States? Considering a majority of those lawyers weren't elected, I'd have to say no. But decide for yourself...

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